There are presently available on the market or reported in literature, a variety of canisters for storing and dispensing materials and in particular dry goods, such as kitchen ingredients, animal food and the like. In general, these devices include a storage compartment which allows the materials to come in contact with a dispensing mechanism. The dispensing mechanism can include a paddle wheel arrangement such as found in U.S. Pat. No. 2,750,072 or U.S. Pat. No 4,148,415. Further, as can be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 2,750,072 often an agitating mechanism is provided in order to agitate the materials stored in the container, allowing such materials to be properly provided to the dispensing means. Further, some devices such as the device shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,750,072 provides for preselecting an amount of material which the container then dispenses. In general, the prior devices include a variety of designs for the rotating compartmental rigid plate use as the dispensing apparatus. However, often times due to caking of the materials in the container the proper amount of materials are not reliably and accurately dispensed. Caking frequently occurs in the container as a result of humidity or if the materials sit for extended periods of time. The presence of humidity in the canister can be caused by penetration through cracks or openings such as the dispensing port. In some instances, complete blockage of the operation is caused by large particles of material in the rotating chambers of the paddle wheel which is made of rigid construction, as in the present invention. An additional problem faced by previous inventions is inaccurate amounts of material being dispensed as a result of low levels of materials in the canister. When the canister contents are low, there is less weight to push the remaining ingredients down towards the compartments, causing them to be filled with a lesser density of material.